The Musicals of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Category: Performers

  • The KMBC Texas Rangers

    Both IMDb and the AFI cite a singing group called the Rangers as appearing in MGM’s Going Hollywood. This would appear to be the octet usually known as the KMBC Texas Rangers, a group that performed western songs on a Kansas City, Missouri radio station. The group also appeared in a number of 1930s ‘B’ westerns.

    The lineup of the Texas Rangers changed, and it is currently difficult to be certain about which singers participated in Going Hollywood. They are likely to have been Clarence ‘Idaho’ Hartman, Gomer ‘Tenderfoot’ Cool, Joe ‘Monty’ Strand, Herbie ‘Arizona’ Kratoska, Fran ‘Irish’ Mahaney, Robert ‘Captain Bob’ Crawford and Edward ‘Tucson’ Cronenbold.

  • Vesey O’Davoren

    Vesey Alfred Davoren (1888-1989) was an Anglo-Irish actor from an upper-class background who started out in the British theatre in 1909. His career was interrupted by the First World War, in which he seems to have had a particularly bad time, sustaining several injuries, the effect of a mustard gas attack, and experiences that must have been traumatizing.

    When he travelled to America in 1920, press reports mentioned him as a British film actor, but there is no indication of what films he might have made before emigrating. 

    While maintaining his theatrical work, O’Davoren developed a parallel career as a largely uncredited character actor in films, making his debut in Winds of the Pampas (1927). He was in approaching sixty feature films, frequently playing a butler, which is slightly ironic, given his roots.

    Notable pictures in which O’Davoren played a small part include Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1937), Stella Dallas (1937), Four Men and a Prayer (1938) and Forever Amber (1947).

    O’Davoren was in three of MGM’s musicals: Going Hollywood, Million Dollar Mermaid and Brigadoon.

    He continued to live in California for almost thirty years after retiring at the age of 72.

  • Miki Morita

    Morita Mitsugi (1896-1985) was a Japanese character actor in Hollywood at a time when stereotyping was the order of the day and difficult to resist.

    Morita left Japan when he was eighteen and worked at a variety of jobs in the United States and Canada. Some sources claim he appeared in silent films, but the first appearance cited by the AFI catalogue is in 1933. He had a prominent role in Nagana (1933). In fact, it is understood that he was originally slated to play the Japanese research scientist Noguchi Hideo in a biopic, but the idea was dropped. Instead, he played second fiddle to Melvyn Douglas in a story about the fight to cure sleeping sickness.

    After that, Mikita was restricted to playing uncredited supporting roles, frequently as butlers, valets and assorted servants. He vigorously rejected a featured role in Marie Galante (1934) because he believed it showed Japan in a bad light.

    Morita was a gifted actor, and his brief appearances in films such as Front Page Woman (1935) and It Couldn’t Have Happened (1936) were singled out for mention by some reviewers. In even the smallest role, he would fight against the stereotype, for example, when engaging in jujitsu with Cary Grant in The Awful Truth (1937).

    Miki Morita appeared as a florist in Going Hollywood at MGM.

  • Mary Lange

    Mary Thelma Lange (1912-73) travelled from Pennsylvania to New York City as a nineteen-year-old to join the Ziegfeld Follies. She was spotted by a Hollywood scout and invited to go West. 

    In Hollywood, Lange became a Goldwyn Girl, appearing in Roman Scandals (1933). She went on to play uncredited chorus girls in a dozen or so pictures for Goldwyn and a variety of other studios. For a change of pace, she was a lady in waiting in The Affairs of Cellini (1934).

    In 1938, Lange got married and gave up performing to raise a family.

    She appeared as chorus girls in three MGM musicals: Going Hollywood, Broadway Melody of 1936 and, back where she started, The Great Ziegfeld. 

  • Jane Keckley

    Jennifer L Corrie (1876-1963) gained considerable stage experience in stock companies and vaudeville before starting out in films in 1911. Her earliest appearances were in shorts, including a number of westerns, before her feature debut in The Parson of Panamint (1916).

    Keckley appeared in over 160 feature films and shorts, and was a regular in bit parts for Cecil B DeMille. She played uncredited character parts in The Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Magnificent Obsession (1935), Show Boat (1936), Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). She featured in dozens of ‘B’ westerns, ending her career in a Tim Holt programmer.

    Keckley showed up in just one MGM musical, as a teacher in Going Hollywood.

  • Louise Mackintosh

    Louise Mackintosh (1864-1933) was a British actor who made the first of many appearances on Broadway in 1902.

    Mackintosh started out in films with credited roles in pictures shot in New York city, including Chickie (1925), which starred her compatriot Dorothy Mackaill. She went on to play character parts in over a dozen films, both credited and uncredited.

    Her final role, completed shortly before her death, was as one of the teachers in MGM’s Going Hollywood.

  • Clara Blandick

    The screen immortality of Clara Blanchard  Dickey (1876-1962) rests on her role as Dorothy’s Auntie Em in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. Playing aunts was something of a speciality: she was Tom Sawyer’s Aunt Polly in three different pictures, and Esther Blodgett’s Aunt Mattie in A Star is Born (1937), amongst many others.

    Blandick made her stage debut in Boston at the age of 21, and made her first Broadway appearance in 1903, in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman. She continued to work on Broadway and in touring productions.

    Some sources claim she made her first film in 1908, but the earliest appearance identified by the AFI is Mrs Black is Back (19140, an adaptation of a Broadway hit made by Famous Players.

    Blandick was part of the 1929 exodus to Hollywood, where she worked as a character actor until the early fifties, sometimes credited, sometimes not, and well over 100 pictures in total. She played the snooty mother in Shopworn (1932) and was uncredited in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932). Blandick was credited again in Ford’s Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and DeMille’s North West Mounted Police (1940), and uncredited in Lubitsch’s Heaven Can Wait (1943).

    As well as The Wizard of Oz, Blandick appeared without credit in three other MGM musicals: Going Hollywood, The Big Store and Du Barry was a Lady.

  • The King’s Men

    The King’s Men was a musical quartet formed in 1928 by Kenneth ‘Ken’ Lorin Darby (1909-92) and also comprising Jon Dodson [Blunt] (1907-63), Grafton ‘Bud’ Linn (1909-68) and Radburn ‘Rad’ Brown Robinson. 

    The group sang on radio in the Hollywood area before being invited by Paul Whiteman to appear with his orchestra. They were later the backing singers on Bing Crosby’s recording of ‘White Christmas’.

    The King’s Men appeared on screen in a number of films during the 1930s and 40s, including five MGM musicals: Going Hollywood, Hollywood Party, Honolulu, Cairo and For Me and My Gal. In addition, they provided singing voices for the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. They also undertook vocal work for Disney animations.

    Ken Darby had a varied and successful career in Hollywood. In addition to his appearances with the King’s Men, he was a composer and musical arranger, winning three Academy Awards. The films he worked on included The Wizard of Oz and At the Circus for MGM, Disney features such as Dumbo (1941) and Bambi (942),  and The King and I (1956), Porgy and Bess (1957) and Camelot (1962). He was also musical director on non-musicals such as How the West Was Won (1962).

    Darby also worked as a vocal coach, including with Marilyn Monroe in several pictures, and coached the chorus onThe Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

  • Harry Bowen

    Harry Jerome Bowen (1888-1941) appeared in well over 160 films. The majority were shorts and he was generally, though not always, uncredited. His first appearance was probably in the ‘Little Rascals’ short Your Own Back Yard (1925).

    Bowen’s feature films included King Kong (1933), Flying Down to Rio (1933), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), The Whole Town’s Talking (1935) and The Milky Way (1936).

    Harry Bowen was in two MGM musicals, Going Hollywood and The Bohemian Girl. 

  • The Radio Rogues

    The Radio Rogues was a comedy trio comprising James Nicholas ‘Jimmy’ Hollywood (1895-1955), Edward ‘Eddie’ Bartell (1907-91) and Henry Taylor (1907-69). They were essentially impressionists, performing standard songs with jokes and celebrity mimicry.

    The trio appeared as comic relief in a number of feature films during the 1930s, including the MGM musical Going Hollywood, and starred in a few comedy shorts.

    All three occasionally appeared solo in low budget pictures, and Taylor also did some work as a screenwriter.

    A fourth performer, impressionist Sydney ‘Syd’ Chatton appears to have also performed with Hollywood and Bartell, including in the Broadway production of Helzapoppin’ (1938).

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